“You can’t do sweatpants… ladies, number one cause of divorce in America, sweatpants. No!” the 41-year-old actress tells Extra.

“I agree with Eva Mendes 100%. Unless you’re at the gym, down with food poisoning or about to give birth/just gave birth, do not wear sweatpants!” says relationship expert Debra Macleod, of marriagesos.com. “The sweatpants may not cause divorce, but they’re a symbol of a lacklustre, frumpy marriage.”

Now, ladies, do not get your pants in a knot - this is not being anti-feminist, she stresses. “Women are so over-reactionary nowadays. When did trying to look good for your husband become anti-feminist?”

Macleod, who has lived abroad, says that frumpiness is more typical of North American women. “We tend to let ourselves go and stop caring about what we wear. A woman can strike a balance between looking good and feeling comfortable… it does take more work.”

You may say you’d give up your sweatpants for Gosling, “but human behaviour is that it wouldn’t last that long,” adds Dr. Wendy Walsh, and you’d be back into your comfy clothes. “But you do need to pull him back in with his eyes every once in awhile!”

Men are visually wired, says Walsh, and you “need to give them something visual – doesn’t have to be every single night, but it’s a gift to them.”

And guys, take note too! “If you married a guy and he wore beautiful suits to the office and all the dates you went on and as soon as you got married he was only in stinky sweat shorts and a baggy basketball shirt lying on a sofa watching sports, you would start to look at him and go, ‘That wasn’t who I picked!’

“He has to dress up for you too every once in a while to remind you of the big catch that you got. It goes both ways!” adds Walsh, editor-in-chief of askaloveguru.com.

According to Dr. Joel Block, sweatpants will not cause divorce, “especially if the body in them still has curves, rather than hills and valleys. Besides, sweatpants go over better than pulling hairs out of your chin each morning while your hubby is shaving.”

Inevitably, comfort does rear its – sometimes – ugly head, but it has its limits: “like bathroom business is better completed in privacy, especially after Mexican food!” says Block, psychologist at instantchemistry.com, and author of over 20 books on relationships and sexuality.

According to Macleod, generally sweatpants-clad women tend to be focused exclusively on their kids, and have a child-centred marriage. “They dress to be a ‘functional mommy’ rather than a woman or wife trying to look and feel her best – and that signals all kinds of marriage problems are on their way.”

She draws attention to a recent study that suggests an attractive wife leads to a satisfying marriage, and these husbands also tended to treat their wives better. In turn, the wives of these happy hubbies also reported higher levels of happiness and satisfaction in the marriage.

“To be clear, most men don’t expect their wives to look like Eva Mendes any more than most women expect our husbands to look like Ryan Gosling. But we both want our spouse to look their best because physical attraction is part of sexual intimacy and satisfaction.”